The Forbidden Planet International Blog

In February 2012, for the 35th anniversary of 2000AD, I made a pledge:

“But here’s a deal for you. If you’ll do it, so will I. 2012 will be the year I read 2000AD. 2012 will be the year YOU read 2000AD.

I’m still going, how you doing?

Right, after the slightly thicker cover stock and bloody horrible Bisley cover to mark the 1800th issue, we’re back to normal coverstock, but a wraparound Clint Langley ABC Warriors thing this time. Which I was never really going to be that keen on, was I? But despite me really, really not liking Langley’s comic work, his single image stuff is fine, and it’s a striking cover.

But after that striking cover, the ABC Warriors strip inside is everything I dislike about his work. It’s all so hideously static and over-done, a series of smaller talking heads bottom of the page, as the huge action shots go on above – yet have that selfsame overposed, incredibly static feel. If it wasn’t for the fact that it’s packed with hyper-futuristic robots, I’d be calling this fumetti, it’s that close to photo collage. Not helped by having huge panels, a series of what are practically double page spreads, and they just feel like meaningless filler. And Mill’s story just isn’t doing anything for me either, matching Langley’s static stuff. It’s just nothing followed by nothing, and I can’t get into it at all.

But hey, I really do feel like a minority of one here, and it seems, looking around the Internet, that everyone is loving Langley and Mills doing ABC Warriors once more. It’s probably just me.

(Toilet break? ABC Warriors by Pat Mills and Clint Langley)

Dredd is a return to the post Chaos Day storylines that Carroll and Holden had been developing, but unfortunately you wont really be paying attention, as all you’ll see first time round is the poor reproduction on PJ Holden’s art, wrong resolution or something. I imagine Holden was bloody mortified when he saw this issue for the first time. Luckily he’s put up a pencil version of the first page on his blog, and it shows what we could have got….

(Dredd by Michael Carroll and PJ Holden –  crisp clean b&w transformed into pixelated colour. Ooops.)

However, seeing Holden’s pencils does highlight how improved his work’s become. Weaknesses that were there before, where his art just looked a little rough and raw, and storytelling sometimes got a little lost, seem to be going, and he’s developing what he does into some great places. I’m happy seeing more from him, although it will be nice to see the proper colour art with all the pixels next week.

As for the story, it’s Michael Carroll doing another 2-parter, and that fills me with both hope, and dread. Because he’s doing a really very good job of getting over the nightmare that is MC1 post Chaos Day, bringing Dolman back into it, and establishing little touches such as Hershey’s very sensible no-kill policy (why kill ‘em when you could make the perps work at getting the city back on its feet). Yet because it’s only a 2-parter, this means that all these fascinating touches, all this potential for development of the society of modern MC1 will be subsumed next issue into a conclusion for this mini storyline, set up on the final page here.

Personally I want to see Carroll (and Holden) given more room to breathe, I want to see them handle something meatier, something that takes the ideas of the page below and then lets them run with it properly…

(Dredd by Michael Carroll and PJ Holden)

Right, after blowing me away with a beautiful, promising slice of sci-fi last issue with a double sized episode, we’re back to 5 pages of Brass Sun this issue. But even though its very much a different experience, the pace slowing, the focus tightening, this is something truly packed with potential for greatness.

The first three pages featuring the grand-daughter Wren, on the run after her Granfather’s arrest, and the final two a different sort of theological debate as ex-bishop and Archimandrite have a chat about the past and the future. Except there’s blood, and violence in this particular religious debate. Edginton’s story is low-key thrilling, Culbard’s art quite beautiful, and whilst I disliked ABC Warriors simply throwing big art at the page and giving us nothing of interest, here in Brass Sun there’s a  double-page spread that thrills and frustrates – but merely because I want to know what Wren is seeing, what the vista before her represents. Yep, double standards. But to me, one works and one doesn’t, one seems wasteful, the other merely establishing how vast, how epic this tale could become..

We’re establishing more and more of the world of cogs here, a world being lowly enveloped in ice, a world where the dominant clergy are doing everything they can to keep the people in place, rejecting the heresy, citing science as blasphemy, and the hatred between Archimandrate and the bleeding ex-bishop all stems from the conversion to science of the latter, and the continued delusions of the former.

It is, once more, the best thing in here, and I hope there’s a lot more of it to come.

(Brass Sun by Ian Edginton and INJ Culbard)

The Terror Tale strip Blackspot, is by the Indigo Prime team of John Smith and Edmund Bagwell, and the 5-page definitely sends just a little jolt of fear, or maybe unease, up the spine. Smith racks the tension up nicely in the first couple of pages, before leaving Bagwell’s really great looking art, all dark and foreboding, to deliver the gross-out finale. Any more than that and it would give the twist away. And it’s a neat twist topping out a good Terror Tale.

(Terror Tales: Blackspot by John Smith and Edmund Bagwell)

Grey Area starts off taking all the promise from last issue’s opener and almost throwing it away. We left the Exo Transfer Control Teams following the trail of a grisly double murder right back to a Grey Area ambassador, and the first page here has the Captain being convinced by one of his men that they should just throw away procedure and risk screwing up the investigation ….. basically so Abnett can move the story from here to there quicker.

But like I said, it’s almost throwing it away. Once you get past that there’s something of a very neatly done police procedural about this. BUT I’ve fallen foul of Grey Area before, so whilst I can confidently wax on and on about the potential in Brass Sun, here I have to proceed with more caution. Abnett’s managed to set up Grey Area stories really promisingly before. I’m hoping this one actually delivers on the promise this time. And bloody hell, if Lee Carter’s art isn’t actually beginning to grow on me as well.

(Grey Area by Dan Abnett and Lee Carter)

All in all, this post Prog 1800 line-up is damn strong. Yes, I don’t like ABC Warriors at all, but I know I’m in the minority there, and the rest of it is doing a really sterling job of keeping the high quality going week in and week out. My weekly trip to the newsagents, and my weekly read has never really seemed a mission, or a chore, just a welcome reimmersion in getting a regular comic. Hopefully it’s prompted some of you to do the same?